Dorothy Porter
Dorothy Porter is a poet, verse novelist and librettist. Her first poetry collection Little Hoodlum was published the same year as her graduation from Sydney University and established her as one of Australia’s most exciting young writers.
Her first verse novel, The Monkey's Mask was published in 1994 and won the Age Poetry Book of the Year and the National Book Council's Turnbull Fox Phillips Poetry Prize (the Banjo). In England it was named one of the books of the year in the Times. It was adapted for the stage as a multi media one woman show, and as a radio play for the ABC. In 2001 a film, based on the book, was released in Australia and around the world.
Dorothy has published a further five collections of verse, and four verse novels including Wild Surmise, which was short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award in 2003 and won the Adelaide Festival Award in 2004.
In 1996 Dorothy wrote the libretto for a chamber opera, The Ghost Wife, with Jonathan Mills as the composer. Based on a short story by Barbara Baynton, the opera premiered at the 1999 Melbourne International, opened the Sydney Festival in 2001, and played at the Barbican in London, in 2002.
The Eternity Man, another chamber opera, by Dorothy and Jonathan Mills premiered in London in 2003 and was one of three winners of the inaugural Genesis Foundation award. It is soon to be made into a film directed by Julien Temple.
A CD of songs written for Paul Grabowsky and Katie Noonan, Before Time Could Change Us, was released by Warner Music in July 2005.
Dorothy's new verse novel, El Dorado has recently been published by Picador Australia. She lives in Melbourne.
Books by Dorothy Porter
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Driving Too Fast
Bearing as its hallmark a fascination with a life lived in extremis, this volume established Porter as one of the leading poets of her generation. It contains some of Dorothy Porter’s most memorable verse, including her dramatic rewriting of Carmen.
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Akenhaten
Written in the seductive voice of the rogue Egyptian pharoah, Akenhaten, this verse novel re-imagines the lost reign of one of the most enigmatic kings of the ancient world. It is a tale involving incest, androgeny, heresy and absolute power.
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The Monkey's Mask
The Monkey's Mask is a totally unique experience. It's poetry. It's a crime thriller. It's where high art meets low life, passion meets betrayal, and poetry faces profanity on the streets of a harsh modern city. Dorothy Porter's verse novel holds you in its grip from the first verse paragraph to the final haunting pages.
Age Poetry Book of the Year 1994
National Book Council's Turnbull Fox Phillips Poetry Prize
Best Books of the Year in the Times
Adapted for the stage as a multi media one woman show
Adapted for radio for the ABC, 1995, and the BBC, 2006A film based on The Monkey's Mask, directed by Samantha Lang and produced by Arena Films was released in 2001
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Crete
This extraordinary work summons a heady mix of dark humour, archaeology and eroticism to lead the reader into an imaginative world like no other.
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What a Piece of Work
As the new Superintendent at Callan Park Psychiatric Hospital, Dr Peter Cyren must perform medical alchemy — turn diseased minds into healthy ones. But is the case of his own soul, this sacred process works irrevocably in reverse. Crackling with style, Porter has written a poetic masterpiece.
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Other Worlds: Poems 1997-2001
These poems deal with subjects such as life, love and death and their comparisons to the seemingly random behaviour of the heavens and the elements. Other Worlds is a groundbreaking anthology of Dorothy's work over the last three years.
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Wild Surmise
Alex Leefson is astronomy's glamour girl, in love with the satellite Europa and the equally unreachable Phoebe. Meanwhile, her husband Daniel mourns the demise of his marriage and his life.
Full of Dorothy Porter's customary bite and sensuality, Wild Surmise is an intensely moving verse novel of passions and vulnerabilities, love and death.
Shortlist Miles Franklin Award, 2003
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Adelaide Festival Award, 2004 -
Poems January - August 2004
Limited edition, Vagabond Press Rare Objects Series
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Best Australian Poems 2006
"This is not a lukewarm anthology of Golden Oldies and Greatest Hits. From every poet there is a true and fresh note …" So writes Dorothy Porter, introducing her vibrant selection of Best Australian Poems 2006. Ranging "from knuckle-raw elegies through pungent political satire to exquisite lyrical reflection and deft language play", this is a collection that is sure to delight, transport and intrigue.
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El Dorado
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIME MINISTER'S LITERARY AWARDS
Now available in b-format paperback from Picador Australia
‘At a time when fiction in verse is in vogue in Australia…EL DORADO is a stellar example — popular poetry that is morally weighty, elegantly crafted.’
Bulletin‘There are dozens of fine, powerful and subtle poems in this sequence, but, as with Porter’s other verse novels, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts…this mature and accomplished work…puts her at the top of the distinguished class of contemporary Australian poets when it comes to livres composés.’
Australian Book Review‘…one reason why Porter's works are so compelling: her close human dramas play out in this stark imaginative space. She writes in short lines with street-smart lingo; but she works with elaborate images and rococo emotion.’
The AgeThere is a serial child killer stalking the streets of Melbourne. He kills his victims gently and places a gold mark on their head. The mark of El Dorado. He doesn't kill because he hates children, but because he loves them. He believes in Childhood Innocence, and he will kill to entomb them there. This is a book about a friendship under siege, and about how jealousy and betrayal cast very long shadows – which can stalk you to the grave.
El Dorado is Dorothy Porter's finest verse novel to date. Unflinching and morally uncompromising, it is both a complex thriller and a completely unique, and compelling, reading experience from Australia's most maverick and versatile poet.
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